The Gender-Patent Gap
The underrepresentation of women in science remains a persistent and pervasive problem. Recent explanations for the gender disparity include women's’ preference for literary subjects and social barriers at the workplace.
In order to find out more about the role of women in science, we are researching national differences in gender disparities and patents. Our work covers 120 countries over the period 1880-2012, with a particular focus on the period after World War II.
We argue that formerly communist countries see 300% more women patent holders than their NATO counterparts. Liberal countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom, and Austria have the lowest rates of women patent holders in the world, with just 8% of recent patents having been filed by women.
Meanwhile, women represent more than one third of patent holders in other countries. Most patents filed by women appear to be produced in public institutions (hospitals and universities) rather than private businesses.
The mechanisms that limit domestic production entrusted to middle-class women are more extensive in economies where there is not a large gender patent gap. Our results indicate that policies that focus on changing anti-STEM sentiment or implementing workplace solutions such as quotas are less effective at reducing the gender patent gap than solutions aimed at reducing home production costs.
Researchers
Elvira Sojli
Associate Professor of Finance in the School of Banking and Finance, the University of New South Wales.
Elvira Sojli is Associate Professor of Finance in the School of Banking and Finance, the University of New South Wales. Her work focuses on empirical industrial organization at the firm and market level. She is particularly interested in understanding the role of and determinants of women participation in innovation and in the international aspect of differences across countries and disciplines. She was an Assistant and Associate Professor of Finance at the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University from 2008-2016.
She was a Marie Curie research fellow for the period 2009-2011 and a research fellow at the Duisenberg School of Finance from 2010-2014. Her work has been published in top finance and economics journals and has been presented at the AEA, AFA, WFA, EFA, FIRS among many other conferences. She has been a visiting scholar at Haas School of Business (UC Berkeley), Jones Graduate School of Business (Rice University), and the National University of Singapore.
She has a PhD from Warwick Business School, University of Warwick.
MOST RECENT PUBLICATIONS
Quoting activity and the cost of capital
Wing Wah Tham
Associate Professor of Finance in the School of Banking and Finance of University of New South Wales.
Wing Wah Tham is an Associate Professor of Finance in the School of Banking and Finance of University of New South Wales. Previously, he was an Associate Professor of Financial Econometrics at Econometric Institute, Erasmus School of Economics.
Professor Tham’s research focuses on econometrics, market microstructure, asset pricing and innovation. Professor Tham’s research has been published in top tier journals, including Review of Financial Studies, Management Science, Journal of Econometrics, Journal of International Business Studies, Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis.
He has won the PanAngora Crowell second prize, Midwest Finance Association best paper award and the Literati Network Awards for Excellence for his work. He is currently an EU Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow and a Tinbergen Institute Fellow. He has been a visiting scholar at the Haas Business School, UC Berkeley and National University of Singapore.
MOST RECENT PUBLICATIONS
“Quoting activity and the cost of capital” – Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analyis
“Foreign political connections” – Journal of International Business Studies
David M. Reeb is a professor at the National University of Singapore and holds the Mr. and Mrs. Lin Jo Yan Professorship, with appointments in both accounting and finance. He serves as a Senior Fellow of the Asian Bureau of Finance and Economic Research (ABFER), a Fellow at the Academy of International Business (AIB), as the Director of Business Doctoral Programs in NUS Business School, and Head of Department, Accounting.
His research interests range from founding-family ownership to corporate innovation, and include the organization of financial intermediation, unreported innovation, and federal regulation. Over the past several years, his work has appeared in the most influential academic journals in accounting, economics, finance, law, and management.
MOST RECENT PUBLICATIONS
“The Ownership Complaint Gap: Stock vs Mutual Intermediaries”